Tag Archives: body fat

I was perusing the internet recently when I came across something that has been haunting me lately: The C word. You all know it, and you all don’t love it. That’s right: cellulite. Everyone hates cellulite, and as I have gotten older, I have certainly grown to be just like everyone else. Cellulite may be natural, but it is the worst!

Here’s what it looks like up close. Basically, when your fat is pushed up against your skin, it sometimes presses through fibers in your tissue, giving it a wrinkled, dimply appearance. It’s the same fat as anywhere else on your body, but because of these fibers it looks totally different.

But there is good news! There are ways to combat cellulite, and it’s not just about exercise.

AVOID: Alcohol, foods high in sugar, foods high in salt, fried foods, sugary alcohol beverages, and packaged snack foods. I hate to break it to you, guys, but these things that we already know are bad for us really, truly are bad for us. Especially in regards to cellulite. If you don’t want cellulite, don’t give in. (more…)

When you walk into the gym and step on the treadmill, you probably have one thing in mind: You want to lose some body fat. It may be 5 pounds or it may be 25 pounds; whatever that number may be I’ve got some advice for you: Step off of the treadmill. Listed below are just a few of the many upsides heavy weight lifting has for weight loss and essential health.

Weight Lifting Burns More Fat Than CardioWhile cardio has been found to be essential for good heart health, it can also burn muscle along with fat which is something you don’t want to happen.

This negative effect happens because the more muscle your body has the morefat your body burns. For every pound of muscle you gain, your body naturally burns an extra 35-50 calories per day, just by obtaining muscle! Therefore, a weight lifting session continues to burn calories even after your workout is over with where as cardio stops burning calories the second it’s over with.

“The more lean muscle mass an individual has the more calories burned at rest, therefore resistance training helps to burn fat while developing a lean, toned physique,” said Kalene Smith, certified personal trainer, lifestyle coach and owner of GoTimeTraining.com.

When you look at from in this perspective, one of the last things a woman wanting to lower her body fat should want to do is get rid of the muscle she already has. (more…)

The scale is a funny thing. Many of us fall victim to letting a number dictate our mood. A single, solitary number cancontrol our whole life. I was a victim to the scale. A few years ago, I’d step on the scale multiple times a day. That number flashing back at me could make or break my day. Looking back, I realize how ridiculous that was. It was a joke!

These days, I truly think the number on the scale is a joke. Let me explain why.

A couple years ago I broke up with the scale. I’d realized my unhealthy addiction to weighing myself and so I gave it up—cold turkey. It had been over two years since I weighed myself when my husband asked if I would go get my body fat checked with him. He didn’t want to go alone—not because he was scared, but simply because he wanted some company. But me? I was terrified. I didn’t know how much I weighed and I did not want to know. But I also wanted to support him and not make him think I am a crazy person who is deathly afraid of weighing herself. (Dramatic much?) (more…)

Tim Ferriss is the author of the best selling book The 4 Hour Body and a self-proclaimed human guinea pig. He’s tested many health and fitness theories on his own body to be able to provide fully researched and proven advice for some of our biggest health complaints. He shared some new and very interesting things he has learned on Dr. Oz’s show recently.

Ferriss covers the spectrum of human health. From metabolism to mood, he offered some great insight and very unique remedies to our biggest issues.

The 5-minute deep freeze is the method Ferris advised as a metabolism booster. The deep freeze is a cold shower ranging from 5 to 30 minutes. The cold temperatures are said to activate brown fat, the fat-burning tissue that burns energy to keep us warm. Shivering in the cold shower indicates that energy is being used to keep the body temperature up, therefore boosting your metabolism.

Millions of people are taking prescription antidepressants to keep their serotonin levels high and keep their moods positive. Ferriss explained that 90% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut so eating fermented food such as kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) and its healthy probiotic bacteria will help serotonin in your gut move to the brain. Lacto-fermented food such as sauerkraut or plain yogurt can also aid in increasing serotonin levels and increasing mood.

Aimee E. Raupp is the author of Chill Out and Get Healthy– a no nonsense guide for women on improving their health now. As well she is a licensed acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist with a masters of science in Traditional Oriental Medicine. For more information visit AimeeRaupp.com.

Eat fat to lose fat

Yes, you heard me: eat fat to lose fat.

“But, isn’t fat is bad for my health? And, doesn’t it cause heart disease?” I hear you say. The answer to both is no.

For many centuries, cultures (like the French) have been eating high fat diets and, oddly enough, they have much lower rates of obesity and type II diabetes than we do here in the United States. You see, what happened was back in the 1950’s some scientists ran a small and very poorly designed study looking at the incidence of heart disease and the dietary habits of different nations. Somehow (after leaving out a great bit of data) these researchers determined that Americans hearty full-fat diet caused the most heart disease. And, voila now American’s eat a low-fat diet because their doctors recommend it.(more…)

I am asked more frequently about cellulite in my practice than any other health concern. It is the plea from women everywhere, the curse of generations. “Why me?” I have spent hours in session hearing the cellulite lament.

Thanks to the media’s use of airbrushing we are bombarded with unrealistic images of women with perfectly smooth legs and not an ounce of cellulite. One can feel like they are all alone on cellulite island, like the only woman in the world that has “orange peel” skin (I refuse to liken cellulite to cottage cheese, I refuse!) In this era of “false” perfectionism it is difficult to embrace our imperfect selves, and really, really difficult to embrace our cellulite. I always encourage my clients to release the negative focus on those dimply thighs. It’s amazing how cellulite begins to disappear when you magically stop drawing attention to it. That is a great first step toward feeling better about your and your body, we are all imperfect in the most perfectly beautiful way. (more…)

Doctors say internal fat that surrounds vital organs – such as the heart, liver and pancreas – may be just as risky to your health as visible body fat.

Experts aren’t quite sure why internal fat happens without the presence of external fat. They believe people accumulate fat around the stomach area first, but sometimes the body may store it in other places. The amount of internal fat you have also seems to increase with age.

People who seem to eat what they want, when they want, and still stay thin are the bane of many people’s existence who struggle with weight (or at least they are responsible for some mild resentment). However, just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you’re healthy.

Scientists are now sending out a warning to thin people that being lean doesn’t mean you can be carefree with your health. The concern centers around a so-called “lean gene.” This gene keeps people slim but also masks signs of heart disease and diabetes, particularly in men.

What the gene does is reduce levels of fat under the skin. However, what’s left is dangerous tissue that surrounds the heart and other organs.

“We’ve uncovered a truly fascinating genetic story and, when we found the effect of this gene, we were very intrigued by the unexpected finding,” said Professor Douglas Kiel of the Harvard Medical School. (more…)

If you are a woman like me, two words can make you instantly start salivating: Ryan Reynolds. For men, he is someone to be admired and envied because he has a body like a super hero, which is very convenient since he will be portraying one this summer when Green Lantern is released in theaters.

Reynolds first became known for his rock-hard six-pack when he appeared in Blade: Trinity. Since then, his weight has fluctuated a little bit, depending on what kind of movie he was acting in. When Reynolds is going to be in an action film, he really concentrates on building muscle tone. According to his personal trainer, Bobby Strom, Reynolds weighed in at “200 pounds and 8 percent body fat [when he is in an action movie, but for romantic comedies] he’s about 180 and 11 percent body fat.”

In order to get in such fantastic shape, Reynolds works out for 90-minutes, seven days a week. His workouts vary, based mainly on what his role in the next movie is.

Scientists from the U.S. Johns Hopkins team have managed to turn bad white fat into good brown fat in recent experiments on rodents. This breakthrough could be a huge step in treating obesity if it were able to yield the same results in humans.

Brown fat is present in all humans during the infant years, but disappears as we age. Brown fat has been called the key to burning fat and could be a helpful way to control weight. When brown fat is lost in the body, it is replaced by white fat which has been called “bad fat” because it just sits. In their experiment, scientists were able to suppress an appetite stimulating protein called NPY. Through this suppression, the rodent’s appetite and caloric intake was reduced. This was the case even when they were fed a diet high in fat. An even more interesting development with this experiment was that the rodent’s bad white fat stores turned into good brown fat.

Have you ever noticed that people carry weight in different parts of their bodies? Some carry it around their hips, resembling the shape of a pear, while others carry it around the middle, looking more like an apple. For quite a few years, having the shape of an apple has proven to be more of a health risk than a pear, but researchers have been unclear as to why people carry weight in different areas. But new research from the University of Edinburgh is helping to shed light on why humans don’t all carry weight in the same areas — and how the new knowledge can be used to help fight obesity.

Scientists pinpointed a protein known as 11BetaHSD1 that seems to indicate body shape. According to the research that was published in the journal Diabetes, apple-shapes tend to have higher levels of the protein than pear-shapes do. The protein is known to raise levels of hormones that are linked to obesity and is associated with an over-reaction in the immune system that results in unnecessary inflammation that causes damage to healthy cells.

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